• Question: will the world will be short of water by 2025

    Asked by rebekah to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 19 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi Rebekah,

      Will we be short of fresh water by 2025? Some part of the world are already short of fresh water, and yes, the problem is going to increase over the years…

    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi Rebekah

      At the current rate of population growth, it’s calculated that people in some regions will be short of water by 2025. This will be worse in overpopulated regions that already suffer from poorer access to usable water than people in Europe and North America.
      This is an area where we all need to make an effort to use this absolutely essential resource well. It seems hard to believe, but it’s not an endless resource and future generations will have problems if we are not careful.

      If you want to read more, have a look here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources#World_water_supply_and_distribution

      Hope that didn’t worry you too much, just made you more aware of how precious water is! 😉

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      There won’t be less water in the world as a whole but there may certainly be a shortage of drinking water. Global warming has meant that we’ve been getting more weather extremes so droughts, flooding etc. Obviously during dry times there will be a shortage of water and one of the probalems with flooding is that because there is such an excess of water we don;t always have the capacity to store it – i.e. the reservoirs aren’t big enough to hold it.

      Increased pollution also means that fresh water sources are becoming increasingly contaminated and thus unfit for human consumption. Also, water can build up in rocks – these are called aquifers – and these are an important source of drinking water. One of the major sources of drinking water in the London area is from an aquifer in a layer of chalk rock a few km’s under the ground. We have to be very careful not to contaminate this natural source of water through pollution or make it inaccessible by building entirely over the top of it.

      Hope that gives you some idea….

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 19 Jun 2010:

      Hope not, but it is a natural resource which we need to look after well. Without water we will not be able to survive.

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 19 Jun 2010:

      I hope not! But it is a possiblity. There is technology to take the salt out of seawater to make it drinkable or to filter waste water but these are still quite expensive. Hopefully, this technology will get cheaper (or new technology will be invented) and there won’t be a water shortage.

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